Test Valley Borough Council leader Ian Carr says chief executive Roger Tetstall is 'worth' a £3,000 per year pay rise

Leader of Test Valley Borough Council, Cllr Ian Carr backed his council's decision to award a two and a half percent pay rise to its staff - even though chief executive Roger Tetstall, who already earns over £110,000 a year, is set to pocket around £2795 as a result.

The news has been met with anger by groups such as the Tax Payers Alliance who labelled it as a "fat cat rise", yet Cllr Carr was adamant his main man was worth the increase.

He told the Daily Echo: "I think he is worth it.

"He runs a business that has a turnover of £75million a year and he does a great job, so yes I think he is worth it.

"People in similar positions will earn more than him and there are some that will earn less but if he went to a private business I bet he would earn two times more than we are paying him."

Cllr Carr was also asked if he felt a staggered pay rise would have been fairer but he dismissed the idea, saying: "That wouldn't be fair.

"In any organisation pay rises are always given this way because otherwise you are saying that some people are less deserving than others.

"I think we have been fair to everyone."

The decision, which was rubber stamped by members of the General Purposes committee last Wednesday, will cost the council over £400,000 per year - with the three highest paid members of staff pocketing a collective annual increase of nearly £10,000.

All in all the top thirteen senior officials at Test Valley Borough Council will see their wages rise by nearly £23,000 between them - five per cent of the total wage budge increase.

Test Valley Borough Council's offices

Mr Tetstall, who took home a total remuneration package of £148,000 between 2013-2014 - including pension contributions and a payment he received as the local returning officer - will see the biggest rise, with the council's two corporate directors, Andrew Ferrier and Carol Moore receiving almost £2,000 each per annum.

Meanwhile the majority of Test Valley's 450 staff members will take home significantly less - with the council's lowest paid staff, who receive around £15,000 a year, receiving an increase of just £375.

The Daily Echo contacted Test Valley Borough Council to ask if Mr Tetstall, pictured below, would personally justify his pay rise and if he would consider taking a lower increase to bring him more in line with fellow staff members.

However the request was refused by the council, who instead offered a statement on behalf of Cllr Carr.

The statement read: “You asked the chief executive to defend his salary, yet he did not request the pay increase, he is not the only member of staff to receive it and he did not approve it.

"Unison requested the pay award for all staff and the Council’s General Purposes Committee approved it, albeit not the full three percent originally asked for.

"The Committee is made up of councillors, whose pay is regulated by an external body and increases are linked to the national pay award, so its members do not benefit from the staff pay increase.

"I am comfortable that the Chief Executive’s pay is commensurate with a local authority organisation with an annual turnover of £75 million.

“To award a two and a half percent pay increase to all staff is, arguably, a much fairer approach than a scalable pay increase, which would have involved selecting some staff as being less deserving than others, when staff across the organisation have been working harder and longer hours.”

Despite the justification from the council, the decision has been met with strong criticism by the Tax Payers Alliance, who believe the Borough Council have questions to answer.

Dia Chakravarty, political director at the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "When people across the public sector have been facing pay freezes or worse, the onus falls on the Council to explain exactly what the Chief Executive has done to deserve a whopping pay rise.

"Taxpayers up and down the country who are struggling to make ends expect their taxes to pay for essential services, not on pay rises for Town Hall fat cats."

However the rise has also been defended by one of Liberal Democrat's senior Test Valley Borough Councillors, Mark Cooper, pictured below, who backed the 'brain drain' justification issued by the council last week.

He said: "Test Valley have a history of not being able to retain middle and senior managers who end up moving to other authorities or into the private sector.

"If you want to have employ good people you have to pay the wages."

However Cllr Cooper believes that senior figures should be forced to make savings within management positions to earn large pay rises.

He said: "I've said for a long time that you can't have too many chiefs without having enough Indians.

"I think they should be made to go away and find efficiencies within middle or senior management positions if they are to get these increases and this stops authorities getting to top heavy.

"If they are set a target of 10 percent then they will more than pay for their increase."

Mr Tetstall and fellow staff members at Test Valley Borough Council were previously rewarded with a one percent pay rise in 2012 which was followed by another one percent increase in 2013.

However in 2011/12 councillors took a different approach - making a one-off payment of £250 to staff members who earned less than £21,000 in the year.

The 2.5 percent increase was marginally short of the three percent demand made by members of Unison - a move which would have cost the council over £470,000 per year.